tridiego wrote:
The major problem is they are airing these recorded races for those that do not race. They are simply advertisements for ironman events. That is why they SUCK MAJORLY for those already immersed in the sport.
There are two places that Ironman should invest:
1. Live, online video coverage. And I mean decent coverage. multiple cameras on the mens leaders, women leaders, and the fastest AG athletes.
2. Online tracking. No explanation needed
The odd part was that the commercials were aimed squarely at the triathlete/endurance athlete. Every commercial break featured an ad for the ironman store, the spartan race was featured a few times, and most of the other commercials were 'outdoorsy.' Whoever is running the advertising department over at ironman seems to understand that most viewers are already sold on IM. Why doesn't the production crew?
The thing is, it isn't like these are novel ideas or that conflict with some of the elements aimed at the 'softer' (personal interest stories, mainly). All they had to do was fill in some of the details. Most of their commentary was vague. "So and so in first, chased by this other guy" Yes, but it doesn't cost you anything to say how far, or how they're gaining. Last year's kona coverage did this well enough with how they showed Carfrae chasing everyone down (could have used more splits, but now we're nitpicking). Just tell us how far back that person is.
In my opinion the worst was how they covered IM Melbourne earlier in the evening, and shows the root of the issue: out of each transition and at the end they showed placing, not time. A quick lookup on Ironman.com by the graphics department would have solved this. They have the data already in hand.